


When in not-Daxam...

by Keenir



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Cameras, Daxam and Krypton clearly had issues, Gen, Mon-El is not an idiot, Mon-El was a palace guard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-09
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-08-30 00:16:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8511424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keenir/pseuds/Keenir
Summary: Mon-El apologizes.  The return of the camera.





	1. Chapter 1

Early the next morning, Jimmy came in to work before everyone else, and found something sitting on his desk.  _I saw it get crushed under those wheels._

"I think the comment for now is about...a squareness?" Mon-El asked, visible at the edge of Jimmy's vision.

Turning to face him, Jimmy said, "The phrase is 'are we square now?'" more on auto-pilot right now, "and the answer is yes.  And not just because I wasn't mad at you to begin with."

"You fired me, you didn't kill me," Mon-El said.

Not sure if that was being damned with faint praise, or what it was, he decided to move on:  "That's my camera," Jimmy said. "How...?"

Mon-El didn't shrug or anything to show humility, but neither was there any ego on display.  "I found the parts, and assembled them. _Unremarkable_ is the English, I understand."

"You put it back together, after a truck ran over it.  That's...awesome is a pretty good word."

"You should have seen some of the messes His Right Royal Princely Selfness made.  Your camera was easy...in comparison," Mon-El said.

"Still dammed impressive," Jimmy said.  "What do I owe you for it?" because remembering Mon-El's comment about coffee, "Because if this is a bribe, then -"

"Not a bribe.  An apology.  Many apologies, as are required.  Before I came to work here, I listened to Kara tell me about how this place - this _planet_ \- is different from where we come from, how there is greater individuality than on either of our homes..."

"You don't have to -"

"'Have'?  _Need_.  Understand that, human, I ask you.  Kara told me all that, and like some slip of a wallthing, I set aside my training and my discipline and so much restraint.  I look back at my late job here, and I'm horrified at how easy it was to forget myself."

"You want another try?" Jimmy offered.

"I would like that very much, m'lord."

"What?"

Mon-El said, "Kara tried to explain companies to me after I was fired.  The casualness of your office tricked me before -  Kara may be correct that this land has no monarchs, but there are still princes of the various towers and estates.  Yourself, the Lena Luthor whose party we were in attendance at, the Martian.  I was guard and bodyguard, and should have behaved accordingly.  Instead, I -" and the only sound that passed his lips was a garble; James suspected it wasn't a word Kara or Clark would know  -"precisely as my parents would," and did not sound happy at the comparison.

"So my camera...?" Jimmy asked, curious how that tied in.  _A gift to someone who should have been given the respect due a noble or at least a superior officer?_

"Kara."

 _Ah._ "She gave you the idea?"

"Indirectly.  She is from Krypton; and one of the few times Daxam is spoken kindly by Kryptonians is the phrase _built as if by Daxamite hands_.  Or so my parents and kings always claimed."   For a moment, it wasn't the clothes that made Mon-El look small and harmless.  "Kara can fly, and I can repair; her race and my own each have our innate skills."

Jimmy said, "If you want, you've got a job here.  If you'd prefer, I can make a call, get you an interview somewhere you can fix things all you want.  Or somewhere else entirely."

Mon-El frowned.  "I failed at serving under you.  Why are you so generous?"

"Somehow I doubt I'm the only person offering you a hand," Jimmy said.

"Kara is Kryptonian; I'm used to her kind lording it over mine and telling us what to do.  The Martian is...himself; strange and solitary beyond my ken, though I am coming to terms with my own solitude now.  You are human; one lordling surrounded by both friends and foes and indifferents and loyalists - and with all your concerns and things to do and attention-grabbing matters...you are taking the time to offer me a hand."

"I'm happy to help."

The hint of a smile.  "On Daxam, even fools do not refuse help.  I accept."


	2. Adrift in the sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adrift in the sea of humans, there are them and there is me.  
> (Mon-El's POV)

Adrift in the sea of humans, there are them and there is me.

Kal-El whom I never met.   Believed himself the lone survivor of the dying planet Krypton.

Kara of Krypton.  Never called herself the last - called herself the person who was supposed to raise and take care and teach Kal-El, who grew up thinking he was the last Kryptonian.

J'onn of Mars.  Called himself the 'last son of mars.'  Turns out he's not the last Green Martian.

I, me, Mon-El of Daxam.  _Dax-eg,_ the ending one, the lone lingering survivor.  The bit of ink at the end of a drawn line.

Throughout their history, Mars and Krypton could send out survivors at any point.  They had a space program that let them conquer not-friends and influence the needy.  I am on Earth only because Krypton sent emissaries to Daxam, and those emissaries plowed themselves right into trouble.  Daxam, my people, my world, we had no way of leaving the surface or the depths of Daxam.  Others invited us - the royal family or mercenaries, for the most part - on their starships to here and there; but always made the point of returning us to Daxam.  _Daxam, daxam, etua_...round about, but always ending in home.

I can never return.  I am the only one left, stranded on this world.  Daxam's only refugee.

Except in how its own people could not flee any planetary disaster, Earth is not Daxam.  However much Kara tries to convince me of its similarity, I see only surface familiarity (which I gladly grasp and embrace, I admit freely)

In a book that was loaned to me, I found a statement over a millenia old...and stirringly achingly true to how I am in this place:  "Here I am a barbarian, for noone understands me."

 


	3. Post-Parasite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (okay, my original plan during the ep, had been for Mon-El and Alex to have a chat as an episode coda; now i can't do that)
> 
> In the midst of this comfy kidnapping, Mon-El does some thinking.

_This is not the first time I've been kidnapped,_ Mon-El mused as he was thrown into the van which then sped off.  _Not even the most uncomfortable.  Humans are amateurs._

"Welcome to Cadmus," he was told.

_'Cadmus'?  Kryptonian word...Winn mentioned there were squads of Kara's people here on this planet._

_Bump.  Bump.  Sharp turn south.  If these Kryptonians are the same enemies of the DEO that Kara fought before, then they may've nabbed me because they saw me talking to Alex Danvers, not because they know I'm a Daxamite.  They'll find that out soon enough...they always do._

And that spurred a deeper level of thought as the reactive part of his brain continued keeping track of where the van was turning and going.  _Alex told me she doesn't believe in me; I'm fine with that.  But Kara...that Kara believes in me.  Sometimes, that was openly illegal, for a Kryptonian to **believe** in a Daxamite.  Belief - a strong form of love between two individuals, that was agast-making enough for so many centuries.  But if she has the other sort of belief towards me...the sort that had been the illegal one..._

Mon-El frowned, which earned him a sharp word from one of his captors - which he heard but didn't process, _just more Kryptonian foulness towards their lessers, after all._   This was followed by a strike against his head by one of their guns; seemingly symbolic and not delivered with any superstrength, the attack was more accute than if he'd been thrown through a wall.

Which only focused his thoughts about Kara all the more, however uncomfortable it made him:  _humans believe in their gods, we Daxamites believe in our royal family, and Kryptonians believe in their civilization.  Kara feels towards me in that way?_

A resolve to escape honed itself in him, sharpening as the kidnappers continued onwards.  _I need to speak with Kara about this.  Find out if her sister was simply attempting to rouse me to action - she certainly did - or if it is true._

_She spoke to me and - though she didn't want to, didn't intend to - called me a typical Daxamite.  No matter how heroic I am, I will always be The Daxamite.  To her, and to anyone else who knows what I am._

"Who are you?" he was asked when the van slowed to a stop, asked by the same woman who had welcomed him to Cadmus.

Remaining calm and settled, Mon-El listened.  Soaked up with all his senses what was around him.  Escape was unlikely, though overpowering his captors would have been simplicity itself.

Therefore...   _I am a Daxamite; from infancy, we are taught how to survive and to serve.  We learn loyalty and betrayal and all the shades of honesty and lies with every breath we take.  If you don't know where I am from, I will not tell you.  I will make my way back to Kara and ask her my question._ "I am Mon-El," he said, and let them draw the wrong conclusion.


End file.
